Julia’s #CBRV Review #17: The Sons of Macha by John Lenahan

I had been looking forward to the release of this book for months. Then I was looking forward to it coming in the mail, then reading it, and now I’m looking forward to reviewing it. The Sons of Macha by John Lenahan is the third and final book in his Shadowmagic trilogy. As I feel it’s always important to share by own bias, I was introduced to this series by way of the 2011 Red Dwarf Convention (Red Dwarf is a British sci-fi show, it’s great, check it out.) John Lenahan once played the voice of a talking toaster on said show, so he was invited to make an appearance at the convention. I soon learned that John Lenahan is also an author and magician. I bought book one of the series, Shadowmagic, at that convention and I’ve been hooked ever since. It didn’t hurt that John Lenahan is a charming human being and a seemingly, all-around great guy. He also performed actual, live magic! He was even good enough to pose for the below picture.

Pictured: bias.

So will this review be fair and even? No, probably not. But I hope it at least encourages some of you to check out the Shadowmagic series (books one and two are available as free  audiobooks here: http://podiobooks.com/contributor/john-lenahan/), because now all I have to look forward to is whatever Mr. Lenahan decides to write next.

Onto the book itself, unfortunately, I’m beginning at the end. The Sons of Macha concludes the story of Conor O’Neil, a wise-cracking, smart-aleck teenager who has discovered that his father is not in simply a professor of ancient languages, but also the rightful ruler of the magical kingdom of Tir Na Nog. In book two of the series Conor discovers that his Uncle is actively attempting to launch a military assault against Castle Duir.  Conor is joined by his friends, Araf and Tuan, a pair of girls, Essa and Graysea, who may be fighting for his attention (he’s not quite sure), and his extended family. The actions of the characters are shadowed by the prophecies of Ona, a powerful witch who once predicted the fate of the kingdom. Sons of Macha tells the tale of the return of Macha, Conor’s Grandmother and mother to Conor’s Uncle and Father. Unfortunately, not all family reunions are joyous ones, and Macha ends up playing an unexpected role in the fight for Tir Na Nog.

Julia’s #CBRV Review #16: The Banks of Certain Rivers by Jon Harrison

I was lucky enough to receive The Banks of Certain Rivers through a free book promotion for Cannonball Read. So I’ll start off with a big thank you to the author! It was a great read, and I’m thrilled that I’m going to be able to recommend the book.

The Banks of Certain Rivers  is the story of Neil Kazenzakis. Neil’s wife, Wendy, fell into a permanent vegetative state after a devastating swimming pool accident. Neil and his son Chris have slowly been piecing their lives back together, only to have them shatter again via an social media scandal. When Neil, a physics teacher, attempts to break up an after school fight, footage of the event is caught on tape, however, this footage is doctored to make Neil appear as the aggressor. The fake video is soon uploaded to Youtube where the school district and local tabloids begin to take notice. Pretty soon national media outlets are knocking at Neil’s door; he’s being harassed in his home and labeled a child-beater. Only those closest to Neil, his next-door neighbor, Alan, his knocked-up girlfriend, Lauren, and his son, maintain his innocence.

Julia’s #CBRV Review #15: The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

I feel guilty for disliking The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett.  I feel guilty because I was in the audience of one of Terry Pratchett’s panels at The NY Comic Con this year, and Pratchett seemed incredibly sweet and highly intelligent. Sean Astin was the main feature of the panel and he was hugely enthusiastic about Pratchett’s work. Everyone in the audience seemed to be in the Pratchett fandom. So I gave The Color of Magic a try, and now I’ve given it’s sequel, The Light Fantastic a try, and all I’m walking away with is a resounding shrug. The Discworld series is a fantasy answer to Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series (which, for the record, I adore), yet somehow, for me, it didn’t quite work. And I feel awful about that.

I don’t idly mention Adams’ work. Both stories have similar construction, there’s the bumbling straight man who has been thrown into a world he knows nothing about (Adams’ Arthur Dent vs. Pratchett’s Twoflower), his narcissistic friend (Zaphod Beeblebrox vs. Rincewind), and the important item he must travel with (a towel vs. the luggage). Both books have the same dry British wit. Both books poke fun and the silliness of their genre while celebrating it. So many similarities, yet I found myself struggling to maintain interest in The Light Fantastic, which was never a problem for any of the Hitchhiker books.

Julia’s #CBRV Review #14: When the Women Come Out to Dance by Elmore Leonard

I decided to take some time off from reviewing, so it’s time to catch back up. Happily, I’m getting back into the race with a good one, When the Women Come Out to Dance by Elmore Leonard. I’m a huge fan of the FX series Justified, so I finally decided to give the source material a try. I almost changed my mind when I saw the cover (legs do not looks like that), however, my love for U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens eventually won out. When the Women Come Out to Dance is a collection of straightforward, well-written, interesting short stories bound together vaguely with the theme of “crime.” From the first story in the book, Sparks, it’s apparent that Leonard has a knack for writing people. The stories are often no longer than 20 pages, but in that time you know the people in them, you know what motivates them, what troubles them, and their history. It takes a special kind of author to condense such impressive character development into a measly 20 pages. Leonard’s characters often find themselves on the wrong side of the law, but they are not wholly unsympathetic, they are people, they have flaws but they also have goodness.

I won’t discuss every story in the book, however, I will discuss the one that motivated me to read it, Fire in the Hole. Raylan Givens is a Deputy U. S. Marshal. He wears a ten gallon hat and cowboy boots. He looks like this:

Somehow, he was less attractive in my imagination.

Raylan is stationed in Miami when he warns a mob-connected gun-thug, Tommy Bucks, to get out of town within 24 hours. Bucks does not comply, Bucks is shot down. With the Federal Marshal Service fearing the ensuing bad press, Raylan is sent back to his hometown of Harlan County, Kentucky. It’s there that he rekindles an old flame, finds an old friend heading a neo-Nazi organization, and tries to live in a place he thought he would never have to return to.

Julia’s #CBRV Review #13: The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov

I’m a big fan of used book stores. Shelves of dirty, old, used up books. My copy of The End of Eternity came from an even grimier origin, the “free bin” at the library. Yes, books so used up that the library doesn’t even want to keep them anymore. This particular book had a big circular indent on the back cover, perhaps somebody used it as a pot rest at some point? I will never know. What I do know is that I have no regrets about holding onto this book, despite the smell. It’s not a book that gets regular mention in the Asimov cannon, but it’s certainly not one to be dismissed. Clocking in at 192 pages it’s a book you can get into and out of in a few hours, but those hours will feel entirely worth it.

The book is set in Eternity, a location outside of time where time travel has been perfected. The men trained in the use of time travel are known as Eternals; they travel “upwhen” and “downwhen” in history, performing little changes that serve to better the human race. Eternals fall into different classes, there are “Computers” who calculate what changes should be made and “Observers” who amass data from different time periods. Andrew Harlan is a “Technician,” he is responsible for carrying out reality changes. Harlan travels to various points in time in “Kettles” and makes minute changes that will eventually prevent a war from being fought, or a plague from spreading, or a totalitarian government from rising. Harlan is doing good work, or so he thinks…

Julia’s #CBRV Review #12: Damned by Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk is weird. He wrote a Tarantino-esque revenge epic for chubby 13-year-old girls that 13-year-old girls should never be allowed to read. Damned is Judy Blume meets Dante Alighieri meets The Breakfast Club, and it is delightful.

Madison Spencer was the daughter of a movie star mother and producer father. She was never quite skinny enough or perfect enough for them to take her to award shows. But Madison was never bitter, she loved her parents. Even when they started adopting disadvantaged children for the  media attention, even when her mother would tell the tabloids she still 8 years old, Madison remained positive, she is nothing if not an optimist. Madison Spencer died at the age of 13 from a marijuana overdose. It is only then that Madison starts to enjoy her life, even if she is in hell.

Julia’s #CBRV Review #11: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

I wanted to categorize this book as an “ok book.” I really did. It’s clear that Sara Gruen put a lot of hard work and research into Water for Elephants and for that reason I did want to like it. But like it I did not, and the redeemable aspects of Water for Elephants kept getting eclipsed by the bore of a plot, lousy characterizations, and the sappy-syrupy-sweet ending. This is the first time reading a book made me want to skip the movie.

So here we go…the plot. Jacob’s parents die (sure, why not create some easy sympathy for the main character). So he dramatically runs out of his final exams for his last year at veterinary school and joins the circus, the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. He quickly moves up the ranks in the circus because, well, he’s almost a veterinarian. Everything would be moving along well for Jacob, if only he didn’t fall in love with Marlena. Marlena’s beautiful. She’s good with horses. The only problem with Marlena is that she’s married. Married to August, the circus ringleader. August is bad, because sometimes he goes crazy and beats the animals. Jacob is good because he treats the animals well. Marlena regrets that she married August before knowing his true nature, well gee, let’s see if she goes and makes the exact same mistake again.

Julia’s #CBRV Review #10: 2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke

2010: Odyssey Two is Arthur C. Clarke’s fantastic follow-up to  2001: A Space Odyssey. 2010 will never have the historical importance of 2001, but there’s a lot to love. I found the characters more compelling, the story more interesting, and the writing keeps pace. 2001 lays some solid groundwork for a good story, but 2010 makes that story richer. While 2001 will always get more attention, don’t be too quick to ignore the sequel; it deals with the same grand ideas as its predecessor, but it does so with a lot more style.

Set nine years after astronaut David Bowman’s fateful flight to Jupiter, America and Russia are in a race to reach his craft, Discovery, and recover information from its databanks. Russia has a new spacecraft, Leonev. America has the valuable minds of Heywood Floyd, planner of Discovery’s initial flight, Walter Curnow, engineer, and Doctor Sivasubramanian Chandrasegarampillai (aka Dr. Chandra), creator of HAL 9000. With the news that Discovery is slowly being pulled out of orbit, and is set to crash, Russia and America join forces, Leonev’s crew allows the three Americans to come aboard, and Leonev sets off for Jupiter.

Julia’s #CBRV Review #9: 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

I can’t be the only one who found Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey to be confusing, so I decided to pick up the novel. Ignorantly, I thought that the movie had been based upon the book, however, as the foreword so eloquently explained, the novel was written concurrently with the production of the movie, with suggestions and input given by Kubrick himself. While Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is not a novelization in the traditional sense, it does read like one, albeit, a very well-written one.

 

2001: A Space Odyssey is a journey from the dawn of man to the destruction of man. It begins with a gang of prehistoric man-apes, too ignorant to employ tools or weapons, facing extinction due to a lack of food. They are visited by a seemingly benevolent alien object, a giant black monolith. The monolith teaches them how to turn the objects around them into useful tools. The monolith is then buried on the moon, to be awakened when man has reached an evolutionary capacity for successful space travel. The excavation of the monolith triggers a signal to the lunar system around Jupiter. A space mission to discover what or who was on the receiving end of the signal is begun. Crewmen David Bowman, Frank Poole, and their hibernating companions are sent on a journey aboard the spacecraft Discovery, guided by the ship’s computer, HAL 9000. The mission does not go according to plan, and something altogether unexpected is found at the receiving end of the signal.

Julia’s #CBRV Review #8: Friday by Robert Heinlein

Hoo boy. I’ll preface this book review by saying that Robert Heinlein is one of my favorite authors. And I think it’s the fact that he’s usually so good that has left me so disappointed with Friday. Here I am, excited to finally read a Heinlein book with a female protagonist, and I get this sex-crazed, obedient, objectified (to the point of ridiculousness) anti-role-model.

Heinlein has written strong female characters before, and that’s what Friday Baldwin is supposed to be. She’s an artificial person, stronger and smarter than her human counterparts, “[her] mother was a test tube and [her] father was a knife.” A highly trained courier for a shadowy organization, Friday’s boss is only known as “Boss,” and the nature and purpose of her missions are often unknown to her. Friday’s missions take her across the globe, and even into outer space. It’s not a bad idea for a novel, but the execution…the execution…